by Sarah Zettel
The bones were so heavy, the drag so powerful. Ingrid was strong, but she was tired, and the burden hung awkwardly. She heaved the net up behind her. One wet, soft bone brushed Ingrid’s skirt.
“Give me my bones!”
The cry reached through her like a hand and clenched itself around Ingrid’s heart. Cold, instant and burning, tore through her flesh and veins and the pain seized her so hard she could not even scream.
“Mine!” shrieked the ghost. “You steal all that is mine, mine, mine!”
“Ingrid! Ingrid Anna Loftfield! Come here!”
Name. Her name, it tugged, toward the voice, toward the fire. The fire she could see, the fire she had built. But she couldn’t make it carrying the bones. They were too cold. She had to let them go. The cold squeezed her heart and the voice cried in her ears “mine, mine, mine, mine!”
No, thought Ingrid desperately, as she took another step forward, and another. Mine. My bones, my heart, my sister, my fire. Mine.
“Thief!” cried the ghost.
“Thief!” croaked Ingrid in reply. Too cold. She shook. She couldn’t hold the net any longer. It was heavy as the whole world and cold as death. She couldn’t feel her fingers or her feet anymore. But was the fire closer? Was it close enough to warm her? If she could reach the fire, if only …
“Grace is here, Ingrid. She needs you.”
Yes. Grace. Grace needed her, needed the bones, needed the fire. The name sent a sliver of strength to Ingrid’s collapsing heart. She could do this. She must. She dragged herself and her burden forward.
She couldn’t breathe. Hands tightened around her throat, crushing her windpipe. Ingrid tried to scream and her hands dropped the net to rise to her neck and try to claw at her attacker, but she touched nothing but cold and air. She saw now, she saw the glowing, distorted face of the ghost, she saw the fire, just inches away, and she saw Grace straining against her prison, and she saw Avan drive his knife into the ghost’s ribs.
The chokehold faltered, and Ingrid collapsed beside the net. The cold fell again, crushing, killing, and with the last of her strength, she shoved net and bones into the fire.
The flames exploded outward as if she had thrown a bomb. In that single instant, Avan raised his arms high in exaltation, Grace threw herself backward from the water and the ghost dissolved in the circle of his own light. In the next heartbeat, the roar and the heat bowled Ingrid over until she lay flat on her back in the sand, blinking stupidly up at the stars.
Stars. She could see the stars. Hands, heart and throat tingled painfully with the memory of the clutching cold, but they were hers again. Ingrid got her hands under her and pushed herself upright.
“Ingrid! Oh my God, Ingrid!”
“Grace?”
It took her a moment to focus, and in that moment, Grace launched herself into Ingrid’s arms, almost knocking her over again.
“Grace!” cried Ingrid. They clung to each other, laughing and hugging. Grace pulled back for a moment, and Ingrid saw her sister fully and completely in herself again. Her eyes shone with all the familiar spark. Ingrid hugged her close again, tears prickling her own eyes. “My God, Grace, you’re back. You’re safe.”
“I knew you’d find me,” said Grace. “Part of me was always trying to call to you, but, I couldn’t make any noise. His voice …” She shuddered. “It was so loud.”
“Shhhh.” Ingrid stroked her fair hair. “Over and done with now. Now there’s only Papa to fear.”
“Tush,” said Grace lightly. “I’ll take care of that, don’t you worry. We’ll all be sitting around the table at breakfast, you’ll see.”
“All …” Ingrid found her head had cleared enough to admit more than one thought at a time, and she moved gently past Grace.
Avan stood at the very edge of the water. Ingrid could see nothing but his silhouette. She patted Grace’s hands and got to her feet, pleased to find herself steady, if aching, and went to his side.
Another step and he’d have been in the water. Wavelets lapped around his boots. Both bandaged hands clenched the hemlock pole, and fresh blood stained the linen. In the faint glow from the remains of the fire she could see on his face the same straining look that had possessed Grace so recently.
“Avan?” she asked, although her throat had gone dry. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes.” He shook himself and turned toward the shore, using the pole like a cane. “Fear not for me. Your sister?”
“We both owe you … I could never begin to repay… .”
Avan shook his head again, dismissing her words.
“Trust Ingrid to find me a genuine Finnish sorcerer.” Grace laughed again, but in the next breath she pressed her hand against her head, swaying dangerously. “I don’t think I’m well yet.”
“You’ve been in bed a month solid. It would be a wonder if you were not weak.” Ingrid took her arm, but she hesitated. Avan still hunched against his pole, staring across the water. She could not simply leave him. “I must get my sister home. Can you walk?”
Avan straightened his back, and his grip on the pole loosened, answering her question better than words. “I can,” he assured her. “All is right.”
“I will come and look in on you in the morning.”
Avan opened his mouth, then closed it, seeming to think the better of his words, but then he did speak. “I would be glad of that.”
With a shock, Ingrid realized she would too. “Then I will,” was all she said before she turned and led Grace up the bluff.
Avanasy stood on the edge of the freshwater sea and stared out across the waves, doing nothing but lean on his makeshift staff and think over what had passed. He remembered the rush of freed power, the strangely savory struggle to raise power buried deep, and the unrelenting determination of one woman.
“She’s brave that one,” said a voice behind him.
“Yes.” Avanasy knew the voice. Once a soul had heard the voice of a spirit power, they did not forget it. If he turned around, there would be a large rabbit sitting on the sand, probably combing its ears, or otherwise looking harmless.
“Strong, too,” Nanabush went on. “Tell you true, magician, I did not think she’d manage.”
“I believe she could manage anything she set her mind to.”
“Pity about the family. They offer poor exchange to a giving heart.”
Avanasy turned from the water. The rabbit sat on the silver sands, its nose whiskers twitching to take in the scent and feel of the night wind. If anyone else had been close enough to see, they would have wondered indeed how a rabbit could cast a shadow in the shape of a fat man. “She has a suitor. Why has she not accepted him?”
“The suitor isn’t suited.” The rabbit shrugged. “How much more reason can there be?” It cocked its head. “Will you give her better exchange?”
“I have nothing to give.”
“Nothing you can give or nothing you will give?” inquired Nanabush. “What ghost calls you from the lake, sorcerer?”
Medeoan. Medeoan moved somewhere beyond those waters, having banished him from her future. Out in the vastness of the universe, Isavalta, his home, turned on its own wheel, he having banished himself from its future. It turned and did not stop for his urging, or his leaving. It turned and did not look back. Which was the proper way. Which, indeed, was the only way.
“None.” Avanasy faced inland. His eyes easily found the track Ingrid had taken with her sister. Memory of her proud carriage, swift eyes, and soft and gentle hands rose warmly and effortlessly in his mind. “None at all.”
Chapter Four
The rains had come to Hastinapura. They poured down in steady sheets of water, turning all the world silver and slick. Every window and door of the Palace of the Pearl Throne had been thrown open to welcome the cool and damp. The myriad sounds of rain wormed through all the carved screens of black wood and lacelike ivory. The dancers in the temple changed their songs and sacred steps to honor Chitrani who was the Mother of the Rains, an
d so the wheel turned within and without and the patterns were laid down afresh.
Chandra tya Achin Ireshpad knelt on a silken cushion in his private apartment. He stared out at the endless fall of the rain obscuring the usual view of the lush gardens and meditated on the nature of the palace and its patterns.
Those patterns served Hastinapura, keeping the land safe and in accord with the world shaped by the dances of the Seven Mothers. Those patterns served his brother Samudra even as Samudra served those patterns.
Those patterns should have served Chandra, had Samudra’s greed not overwhelmed them both, had Samudra not distorted the flow of history.
Footsteps sounded lightly on the marble floor behind him. Chandra did not turn. He heard the rustle of cloth and a brief smacking sound as the floor was kissed.
“I am sent to say that the First of All Queens asks the Brother of her Heart to come sit beside her.”
Chandra stayed still and silent for a moment longer. The rain had its own patterns, woven by the falling drops. If one could understand all that complexity, the thousands of millions of droplets and their paths, one could surely understand the whole world. One could see how to return to an earlier point and rectify one’s mistakes.
“I am sent to say …”
“Yes, yes, I hear.” Chandra sighed. “You may tell the First of All Queens the Brother of her Heart follows.”
The slave kissed the floor again and scuttled away with a mouselike patter of sandals.
The First of All Queens. Chandra snorted as he rose smoothly, allowing his robe to fall neatly into place before he took his first step. Samudra kept only one true queen. Oh, there was a stable of concubines for appearances, girls and women taken on as part of treaties and to aid alliances with noble families. They lived well in the quarters, but it was known that Samudra visited them but rarely, choosing to prove his manhood in acts of destruction rather than generation.
By the time Chandra reached the corridor, the slave had long since vanished. The corridor’s arches of black wood flew high overhead, contrasting with the walls of carved red sandstone and the white marble floors. It was said that when the palace was built each vein of the marble was scrutinized to make sure it would run in the correct direction to weave itself into the whole.
What few outsiders knew was that the palace itself formed a latticework of spells with the Pearl Throne at its heart. The order of the passages, the order of the day, the patrols of the soldiers, the dances of the worshipers, all combined to continuously renew the work of the thousand sorcerers who had built this edifice long centuries ago. Spells of protection, of wisdom, of peace, of prosperity, woven over and over again. His footsteps now, treading their way toward the throne room, worked their purpose to preserve the anointed emperor, to bring him wisdom and to bring his realm stability. All that for Samudra.
The throne room itself was a lofty chamber. The ceiling was a series of high, narrow domes banded with gold, coral and crystal. Those domes were linked by ivory arches minutely carved with friezes and hymns of praise to the Mothers. The Pearl Throne waited empty atop its broad dais of ten steps of polished black marble veined with ghost white. Black pearls made up its base so it seemed to grow out of the shining stone, and black gave way to silver, to rose, to pink, to the purest shimmering white rising to frame the occupant of the golden cushions in a shining halo. Behind it, carved in the same red stone as the floor, the Seven Mothers, each one four times the size of a man, danced in bas relief, their hands holding lotus, fruits, bowls and swords, the symbols of peace, progeny, plenty, and protection.
Chandra remembered the view from the throne. The vast chamber spread out at his feet, with all the ministers and their underlings kneeling patiently on the red stone. He remembered feeling the strength of the Mothers at his back and the strength of his dynasty rooted deep into the foundations of the palace. Nothing could touch him. Nothing could even reach him.
And so it had been, until Samudra had completed his plan. Now Chandra stood level with the secretaries and ministers, even the soldiers guarding the entrances to the rooms and the gates to the women’s quarters, and he looked up, waiting for his turn to address the throne, to address his younger brother.
“The First of All Queens asks that you come sit near her now.”
Without the emperor, the First of All Queens could not appear in public. So, a series of delicately carved sandalwood screens was erected next to the dais. A bench with red cushions had been placed beside the screens, along with a table arrayed with sherbet to drink and dainties to nibble.
As a member of the imperial family, Chandra had only to bow from the waist to properly acknowledge the First of All Queens whom he had to designate as the Sister of his Heart. He saw nothing of her but shadows on the other side of the screen, and the occasional flash of gold and crimson.
“As I am commanded, so am I come, First of All Queens,” said Chandra smoothly.
“Such formality, Brother!” she exclaimed with mock surprise. “Had you business to complete, you could have sent word.”
You know I have no business. Your husband, my brother, allows me none. “What business could I have more important than waiting on the words of the First of All Queens?”
The queen gave a sharp, impatient sigh, cut off short, and replaced by soothing words. “I expect my Brother misses his son.”
“Prince Kacha does well in the far north,” he said. “He sends his duties and his felicitations.”
“Which I am delighted to accept.” Cloth rustled, and the queen’s voice came closer. From the shadows, he thought she must have stepped nearer to the screen. “But, is it not true that you are often dull, my brother? My husband is much away and has left little business for your attention.”
“I have all I need, First of All Queens.” My brother generously permits my lungs to breathe and my heart to beat. He values my flesh enough to barter it away for his treaties with the northern barbarians. What more could I expect?
“I do not believe that to be the truth.” The queen’s voice was solemn, but without any note of accusation. Chandra felt curiosity rising in spite of himself. Could the woman be sincerely concerned about him? Was it possible Samudra had not completely drowned her sympathies? Perhaps there was room to work here.
“You have, I think, been too much alone since your wife died.”
Anger swiftly replaced curiosity. How dared this woman speak of Bandhura? His first wife, his true confidant, his helpmate? How dare she speak of any woman to him when she was the one who deprived him of all his women? Bandhura had told him of the scene, of how this woman, who was just another woman then, had gone to the women’s innermost quarters, where the ones who waited on the imperial pleasure were lodged and announced that Samudra, and Samudra’s line, would ascend to the Pearl Throne, and that all who so desired could take their places waiting on her, and on him, now. And all of them had. All Chandra’s wives proved themselves no better than the whores. All but Bandhura, who had stayed true and loyal, who had borne him his son to be vengeance for them both.
“There is a woman of my company, Abhilasha ayka Aditiela. Her dower is twelve towns in the south. She is young enough to bear many more children of your line. Further, she is fair and is skilled in all the sixty-four arts and sciences.”
Chandra couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Marry? And marry one of the queen’s spies? She could not possibly believe …
“I have communicated my desire for the match at length to my husband, and he is agreeable. It shall be accomplished when the First Rain is over and the moon is again favorable. Our wedding gift to you shall be a new household complete in your capital town.”
Filled to brimming with your spies and lackeys so that I may not make any move without it being reported to you and my brother. You like not my presence in the shadow of the Pearl Throne to remind you of the wrong your husband did, so you must build me a coral prison with a wife for a jailer.
Chandra stood abruptly, unab
le to remain still any longer. “Then I should compose a letter of greeting to my new bride.”
“Tell me this pleases you, Brother. I would not have it otherwise.”
Chandra forced a smile into his voice. “It pleases me to do the will of the First of All Queens.”
“It is hard, Brother, to break a mourning that has been carried for so long, but let your heart be softened toward your new wife. Let her bring you peace.”
Chandra bowed. “The First of All Queens is great in her wisdom. I will do my best.” Probably you have found me some lowborn slut with the appetites of a cat in heat, thinking that, like my brother, I am counseled by the sheathe for my sword and will soon be lulled into complacency.
Again the queen sighed. This time it was a reluctant, regretful sound. “You may go now, Brother, if that is your wish. We will sit together again soon and speak more of these matters.”
“I await the queen’s word.” Officially excused, he straightened up and turned politely away so that he might not catch even a glimpse of the queen’s robe as she departed. He kept his pace even, his back straight, and his hands loose as he paced across the breadth of the throne room, following the ordained path to his apartment.
Inside, Yamuna waited for him. The brown skeleton of a man disdained the pillows and couches. Instead, he stood in front of the open window, his hands folded neatly in a position of patience and meditation. He could have stood so for hours, indeed for days, Chandra knew. He had more than once seen Yamuna do just that.
Chandra cursed futilely. He had hoped to have some time to himself, so that he might come to terms with what had just happened, and decide how to respond, and how to tell his Agnidh, his bound-sorcerer, what had occurred. But no, of course, Yamuna had heard of it the second it happened. It was part of his endless work.
“I dismissed the slaves,” said Yamuna, lowering his hands. He wore only a white cloth wrapped about his hips. His skin stuck tight to bone and muscle, giving the impression that all of the humors had been long since drained from him. One only had to look into his eyes, however, to see all the dreadful vitality that smoldered within his shrunken frame. Ascetic practice had burned away Yamuna’s youth, but it had concentrated his soul. His right hand only was the hand of a young man. Chandra tried not to look at it. Chandra had been present at the ceremony where Yamuna traded his hand for Kacha’s, his eye for Kacha’s eye, and the memory of it still could leave Chandra cold.